Philip Snyder
Executive Director

Philip brings extensive experience in directing organizations combined with his deep interest and experience in contemplative practice. With a doctorate from Cornell University in anthropology specializing in "the anthropology of place,” he has been the executive director of several complex non-profits for over twenty years, including a large, multifaceted center at Cornell (the Center for Religion, Ethics and Social Policy), a regional land conservancy, and the International Office of the Global Ecovillage Network, based in Denmark. He also taught anthropology for eighteen years as an adjunct professor. In 1997, he received a Senior Fulbright Fellowship to coordinate the citizen conflict resolution program of the Fulbright Commission, a unique applied program on the divided island of Cyprus. Philip has had rich experience in all facets of organizational and program development, which he applied in his work as a consultant to organizations. He has lived for many years in Europe and his work has taken him to all continents. The challenge of forging a truly sustainable and fulfilling way of living for all people continues to be a central concern in his life.
 
His inner journey began with a childhood aspiration for the priesthood. His inner life includes Zen Buddhism, long study and practice with Anthroposophy, explorations in Gurdjieff work, Sufism, indigenous spiritualities, a year in a Christian retreat and education center, and continuing practice with a Cypriot teacher, seer and healer. Other approaches also inform his ongoing inquiry and exploration.

Family is important; he is the father of four in a blended family, and is now grandfather of three. He is a passionate organic gardener who enjoys long good meals with friends.

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Mirabai Bush
Senior Fellow

Mirabai holds a unique background of organizational management, teaching, and spiritual practice. A founding board member of the Seva Foundation, an international public health organization, she directed the Seva Guatemala Project, which supports sustainable agriculture and integrated community development. Also at Seva, she co-developed Sustaining Compassion, Sustaining the Earth, a series of retreats and events for grassroots environmental activists on the interconnection of spirit and action. She is co-author, with Ram Dass, of Compassion in Action: Setting Out on the Path of Service, published by Random House.

Mirabai has organized, facilitated, and taught workshops, weekends, and courses on spirit and action for more than 20 years at institutions including Omega Institute, Naropa Institute, Findhorne, Zen Mountain Monastery, University of Massachusetts, San Francisco Zen Center, Buddhist Study Center at Barre, MA, Insight Meditation Society, and the Lama Foundation. She has a special interest in the uncovering and recovery of women's spiritual wisdom to inform work for social change. She has taught women's groups with Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Sharon Salzberg, Joan Halifax, Margo Adler, Starhawk, Jean Shinoda Bolen, Vicky Noble, and other leaders.

Her spiritual studies include meditation study at the Burmese Vihara in Bodh Gaya, India, with Shri S.N. Goenka and Anagarika Munindra; bhakti yoga with Hindu teacher Neemkaroli Baba; and studies with Tibetan lamas Kalu Rinpoche, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Kyabje Gehlek Rinpoche, Tsoknyi Rinpoche, and others. She also did five years of intensive practice in Iyengar yoga and five years of Aikido with Kanai Sensei. Her earlier religious study included 20 years of Catholic schooling, ending with Georgetown University graduate study in medieval literature. She holds an ABD in American literature from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Before entering the foundation world, Mirabai was the first professional woman to work on the Saturn-Apollo moonflight at Cape Canaveral and later co-founded and directed Illuminations, Inc., from 1973 to 1985 in Cambridge, MA. Her innovative business approaches, based on mindfulness practice, were reported in Newsweek, Inc., Fortune, and the Boston Business Journal. She has also worked on educational programs with inner-city youth of color.

Mirabai has trekked, traveled, and lived in many countries, including Guatemala, Mexico, Costa Rica, India, Nepal, Morocco, Ireland, England, Scotland, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Germany, Austria, Italy, Pakistan, and the Caribbean. She is an organic gardener in Western Massachusetts and the mother of one adult son, Owen.

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Sophia Awad Rice
Event Coordinator

Sophia moved to Northampton from New York City, where she was a Business Development Coordinator for Access Capital, Inc. A part-time student, she enjoys spending the moments between work and class quietly walking, knitting, writing and reflecting. She also enjoys the noisy, happy home she's made with her husband Geoff and their cats Ella and Janis.

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Carrie Bergman
Creative Director
email: carrie(at)contemplativemind.org

Before coming to the Center, Carrie graduated from Dickinson College with degrees in Studio Arts and Anthropology and worked for Dickinson's museum and art department. She began experimenting with web technologies in 1996 and has designed and managed contemplativemind.org since 2001. She also creates publications, educational materials, and enewsletters, and generally serves as a "technology facilitator" for the Center. Carrie began studying Tibetan Buddhism in 1996 and is a student of Garchen Rinpoche. She explores forms of creative and artistic expression as forms of contemplative practice and enjoys making music, painting, and knitting.

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Doug Chermak
Law Program Coordinator

Doug practices public interest environmental law in Alameda, CA. He is a 2004 graduate from Boalt Hall School of Law, at the University of California (Berkeley), where he received a JD with a certificate in Environmental Law. In 2001, he received a B.S. in Chemistry (with Honors) from the University of Florida, where he began an exploration of contemplative practices through yoga, prayer, and meditation. He has run the Law Program since 2004, and just finished organizing the fifth West Coast retreat.

Outside of work, Doug strives to cultivate his awareness while practicing yoga, playing tabla and electric bass, climbing, dancing, playing basketball, swimming, and eating locally-grown food. 

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Sunanda Markus
Academic Program Coordinator

Sunanda Markus has served as program coordinator for the Academic Program of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society for 8 years. She also works as the Managing Director of Nights Publications Inc. in Montreal, Quebec.

Her non-profit experience includes serving on the boards of the Seva Foundation, Seva Service Society, the Insight Meditation Society, the Eyak Preservation Council, the Montreal Zen Centre, and the Learning Alliance. As a board member for Seva Foundation she served as chairperson for 3 years and was also an active member of the Seva Guatemala Project which supports integrated community development.

She took her first course in meditation in 1972 in India with the Theravadan Buddhist teacher Shri S.N. Goenka and has been a student of Vipassana meditation since then. She also studied bhakti yoga in India with Hindu teacher Neemkaroli Baba and has been a student of yoga for fifteen years.

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Lila Mereschuk
Director of Administration

Prior to joining the Center, Lila was a trust administrator at U.S. Trust Company in New York. At U.S. Trust she provided portfolio management and estate planning for families with a net worth of 50 million and above.

Lila joined the Center in 2002 and has worn many hats over the years. She is delighted to use her financial experience to serve the Center’s mission as the Director of Administration.

Lila is a native of Brooklyn, New York, and earned her BA in Child Psychology and Development from Sarah Lawrence College. In her spare time she enjoys arts and crafts, playing with her dogs and spending time with family and friends.

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Anna Neiman
Executive Assistant

Anna returned to her hometown of Northampton after living in San Francisco and New York. A BFA graduate from UMASS Amherst and ESOL teacher by training, Anna grew up with Judaism and Hinduism, spending her summers at a meditation Ashram. Her spiritual practices most recently led her to pursue a yoga teaching certificate through the Open Center in New York City. Anna finds joy in various activities including teaching and practicing yoga, cooking, being outdoors, and spending time with her loved ones.

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Rose Sackey-Milligan
Social Justice Program Director

Rose is an applied socio-cultural anthropologist with more than 15 years experience in the philanthropic sector. She is the former Program Director of the Peace Development Fund and Director of Special Programs and Senior Evaluator at the National Center on Family Homelessness. She has been working on women's rights and a range of other social justice issues for 20 years.

Rose is a writer and educator, and her love of travel has taken her to many countries in Latin America, Cuba, the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, and the U.S., including Hawaii.

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Beth Wadham
Academic Program Associate

Beth joins the Center as Academic Associate to support the existing program and the development of new initiatives. She is a former restaurateur and teacher of high school literature in a Waldorf School, and in between had the opportunity to work with Arthur Zajonc, Academic program director, to bring forward The Barfield School of Sunbridge College, a new graduate school that integrates art, academic research and contemplative inquiry.

She earned her BA in Literature from Smith College, where she completed an honor's study of William Blake, and has a teaching certificate from the Waldorf Teacher Training Institute, where she developed courses on the history of language; reading and writing poetry; Melville's Moby Dick; and the Bible.

Her abiding interest in the contemplative dimension of life started early, probably while gazing at the stars in the night sky, and has been nurtured by meetings with kindred spirits and study and practice in diverse traditions such as anthroposophy and yoga. As part of the Center staff, she welcomes the chance to bring the values of contemplative practice wider and deeper into the mainstream culture.

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Arthur Zajonc
Academic Program Director

Arthur Zajonc is professor of physics at Amherst College, where he has taught since 1978. He received his B.S. and Ph.D. in physics from the University of Michigan. He has been visiting professor and research scientist at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics, and the Universities of Rochester and Hannover. He has been Fulbright professor at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. As a postdoctoral fellow at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics he researched electron-atoms collision physics and radiative transfer in dense vapors. His research has included studies in parity violation in atoms, the experimental foundations of quantum physics, and the relationship between sciences, the humanities and contemplation. He has written extensively on Goethe's science. He is author of the book Catching the Light, co-author of The Quantum Challenge, and co-editor of Goethe's Way of Science. In 1997 he served as scientific coordinator for the Mind and Life dialogue with H.H. the Dalai Lama published as The New Physics and Cosmology: Dialogues with the Dalai Lama (Oxford 2004). He again organized the 2002 dialogue with the Dalai Lama, “The Nature of Matter, the Nature of Life,” and acted as moderator at MIT for the “Investigating the Mind” dialogue in 2003 (see www.mindandlife.org). He has also been General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America (1994-2002), president of the Lindisfarne Association, and a senior program director at the Fetzer Institute.

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